Morgan had impact on politics

Tuesday

Oct 9, 2012 at 6:00 AMOct 9, 2012 at 9:21 AM

Nick Kotsopoulos City Hall Notebook

The late Paul S. Morgan has been rightly remembered in the days following his passing a few weeks ago as a very successful local industrialist and a prominent business leader. But it can be argued that his biggest impact on Worcester may have been to its government.

And it wasn’t because he served on the City Council for a couple of terms in the mid-1950s, either.

No, his biggest impact may have come when he chaired the Charter Commission, which was formed in the 1980s at a time when it seemed that the community had grown tired of the council-manager form of government and was ready to replace it with one in which an elected mayor ran the city.

As chairman of the commission, Mr. Morgan played a key role in framing the new charter in such a way that it preserved the council-manager government while offering changes in the composition of the City Council, how the mayor is elected and who is responsible for running elections in Worcester.

In the early 1980s, then-Mayor Jordan Levy and the late City Councilor Paul T. Leahy, in conjunction with a grass-roots citizens group, Worcester Fair Share, launched an initiative petition drive to review Worcester’s charter.

The first step was collecting enough signatures so a referendum could be placed on the ballot, asking voters if they favored having a charter commission review Worcester’s form of government.

At the same time that question was on the ballot, more than three dozen candidates also ran for the Charter Commission and Mr. Morgan won a seat on it, having finished among the top nine. And, once the commission took office, its members elected Mr. Morgan its chairman.

That was considered key because with Mr. Morgan as chairman it was clear from the outset that the commission was not going to recommend a wholesale change of Worcester’s form of government.

There were five members — Mr. Morgan, Helen Bowditch, John Foley, Deborah Kaufman and Elizabeth Price — who supported maintaining the council-manager government, while four members — Richard A. Bonofiglio, William J. Glodis Jr., Carleton E. LaPorte Jr. and Paul M. Pezzella — favored having a strong-mayor form of government.

Needless to say, with such a division there was plenty of acrimony on the commission, and it didn’t help that Mr. Morgan at times attempted to run the commission meetings like a board meeting of a private business — he actually wanted to have the election of the chairman done through a secret ballot.

During his tenure as chairman, Mr. Morgan proved to be an astute politician, though. While he strongly favored the council-manager government, he knew that maintaining the status quo likely would not sit well with a lot of people, especially since they supported a review of the charter in the first place

So, as a way to keep council-manager government around, Mr. Morgan supported three key changes to the charter: directly electing the mayor; increasing the size of the City Council from nine to 11 members, with five of those members elected from districts and six at-large; and establishing a new, independent Election Commission to run local elections.

Mr. Morgan’s sway on the Charter Commission was never more evident than when it voted down a proposal by Mr. Pezzella to create a so-called “minority” City Council district; the person who cast the deciding vote against it was Mrs. Price, a leader of the city’s African-American community at that time.

The night the Charter Commission met to take a final vote on the charter proposal in 1985, it spent nearly five hours going over a number of proposals. When all was said and done, five of the nine commission members, including Mr. Morgan, voted in favor of keeping the council-manager government with some changes.

The four others who sought other more substantive changes, including switching to the strong-mayor form of government, were not present when the final vote was taken because they had walked out in protest.

Before storming out with three fellow colleagues, Mr. LaPorte accused Mr. Morgan and the majority on the commission of “ramming things through.”

To which Mr. Morgan simply replied: “I really don’t think much of this” — in reference to what Mr. LaPorte had to say and those members who walked out of the meeting.

In 1985, voters approved the new charter by a 2-1 margin and it remains in effect today.

Make no mistake about it, things could be a lot different in Worcester today had it not been for Mr. Morgan.